IFTF Staff Posts

For the past several years, we have been experimenting with online gaming platforms as a way to broaden participation in discussions of complex strategic issues. The issues surrounding piracy in Somalia constitute just such an issue where economic, social, and political problems on the land are acted out by diverse players at sea.

On Monday, July 18, we were delighted to bestow the title of
Distinguished Fellow onto two of IFTF's most prolific contributors—Kathi
Vian and Jacques Vallée. Naming Distinguished Fellows is one of the
ways we honor those who have made exceptional, sustained contributions
to IFTF through research, writing, and mentorship.

Will California reinvent itself again for the 21st century? Can everyday
citizens be empowered to help transform California? Will California
keep growing, start conserving, reinvent itself, or completely collapse? These were the questions posed to the participants of IFTF's California
Dreams: Which Future is Yours contest—challenging everyday people to
make a better future for our state.

The digital peasants are getting restless. The first signs of unrest are evident in the stirrings of the bloggers filing a suit against the Huffington Post and its parent AOL, which acquired the publication in February for $315 million. The same writers who were happy to contribute for free before the sale are now accusing the publication of turning them into “modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington's plantation."

This year, the first baby boomers reach the age of 65, making them senior citizens by most definitions. What does this dramatic demographic shift mean? Find out at the “A National Forum on the Future of Aging: Looking Ahead,” an event we’re hosting in San Francisco this Friday with the American Society on Aging. IFTF experts will be speaking, including Richard Adler, Health Horizons Director Rod Falcon and Research Manager Miriam Lueck Avery and Distinguished Fellow Bob Johansen.

Personal fabrication is a theme that continues to emerge in IFTF’s ongoing technology research. As attention is generated around using 3D printing for everything from organs to buildings, this week was an auspicious time for the Technology Horizons Program to hold its spring expert workshop, focusing on Open Fabrication, at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco.

Air pollution and asthma, climate change and natural disasters, drought and crop failures, wasteful practices and water shortages. Human health is directly tied to our planet's health and Institute for the Future research shows that the public is starting to understand this

With the recent passing of Paul Baran, one of IFTF's co-founders, we're releasing an excerpt of a report with forecasts from 1971 which has inspired more than 43 years of technology forecasting at IFTF and has spoken to countless audiences looking to connect and improve life using network technology.

Paul Baran, co-founder and early contributor to IFTF was the engineer who helped create the technical underpinnings for the Arpanet, the government-sponsored precursor to today’s Internet, died Saturday night at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 84.

In just under a week, on January 12, leaders in the areas of fitness, science, health care, game design, video games, and education will converge to talk about the Power of Play, especially active gaming.

Mercury News columnist Chris O'Brien published a column this week about the power of the Internet and its potential to erode the power of nations and large corporations. IFTF Research Director, Jake Dunagan is quoted in the article, citing the long-held belief by futurists that "large organizations such as nations or...

I’ve been swimming in some murky waters lately (and that doesn’t include the Gulf of Mexico). While conducting research on plastic pollution over the past year, I’ve been inundated with images and information about the impact of plastic on our oceans, our environment, and our health. Many of these images have literally made me sick. Those emotional responses have been driving...

This coming Monday and Tuesday, May 17 and 18, the Technology Horizons program will be hosting our spring conference at the Quadrus Center in Menlo Park, CA. If you are not attending, you can follow along on Twitter using this hashtag: #FoW.

Last Thursday evening, IFTF hosted a networking and idea exchange event in preparation for World Entrepreneurship Day (WED). The organization responsible for catalyzing WED was born at Arizona State University, and they are currently traveling around the United States to stoke excitement about World Entrepreneurship Day 2010 (April 16th).

Institute for the Future is very proud to announce Phillip Torrone, senior editor of MAKE magazine, as our guest for the 3rd installment of our FutureCast series.

Please join Jerry Mchalski in a one hour conversation with Torrone as they discuss topics such as open-source hardware, new hacker-spaces opening up, and the Fabber and Maker movements as they continue to develop in the...

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) a U.S. private nonprofit foundation devoted to bringing people together to share these ideas, began TEDx, a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. TED began in 1984 as a small conference of people from the worlds of Technology, Entertainment, and...

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Jamais Cascio as Research Fellow at IFTF. This honorary title is reserved for a few select individuals who have shaped IFTF research in significant ways. In his work as a Research Affiliate at IFTF, in his own writings on OpenTheFuture, and in his increasingly public voice, Jamais has steadily been laying the...

IFTF is honoring the extraordinary career-long contributions that Mike Liebhold has made to our organization and to the evolution of digital technology by conferring on him the title of IFTF Distinguished Fellow. From his work on the future of the geoweb to context aware environments, abundant computation, and mobile ecosystems, Mike has served as a key voice and contributor to technology work...

This intriguing invitation launched Ruby's Bequest, a project by United Cerebral Palsy and the Institute for the Future to create the first platform for public collaborative innovation in health care and caregiving.

Guest expert: Arthur Brock on the future of alternative currency and open money

Date & time: Friday, November 20 at 11:00 am, Pacific Time

Two ways to join the call:

1) If you're Skype-savvy, friend Jerry Michalski at "sociate" anytime between now and the call. Tell him you want to join the call and then he'll call your Skype address a few minutes before the call. (...

IFTF is happy to announce that we will be introducing a new FutureCast podcast series, starting Friday, November 20, at 11 am Pacific Time. Our first podcast will be hosted by Jerry Michalski, and our guest expert will be Arthur Brock of The Metacurrency Project.

I've been thinking a lot about the growth in programming and computational skills that will be required in a world in which Everything is Programmable, and I was really surprised and heartened to see an article by Mitch Resnick et al. about Scratch in this month's...

Global connectivity, smart machines, and new media are just some of the drivers reshaping how we think about work, what constitutes work, and the skills we will need to be productive contributors in the future. This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years. It does not consider what will be the...